An Inter-Ministerial Consultation workshop on the Implementation of Ghana’s Country Structural Vulnerability Mitigation Strategy (CSVMS) opened in Accra yesterday with a call on participants to focus on strategies to deal with teaming unemployment in the country.
The three-day event would among other things deliberate on an effective way to implement the recommendations of the Country Structural Vulnerability and Resilience Assessment (CSVRA) and the CSVMS launched about three years ago.
Opening the workshop, the Senior Presidential Advisor, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo said Ghana was the first country to have adopted the CSVMS after having gone through the vigorous processes putting together the strategy document.
He said the decision by the Government of Ghana (GoG) to undertake the exercise was based on the fact that, efforts at socio-economic advancement hinged on the maintenance of peace and security in the country.
Mr Osafo-Maafo noted that evidence based approach in identifying structural weakness that could make the country susceptible to violent conflicts, fashioning out strategies to nib the triggers of such conflicts in the bud and strengthening resilience structures were issues that needed careful attention for the wellbeing and prosperity of society.
“Having gone through the process successfully, our task at this stage is to ensure that we put in place an effective mechanism that will ensure the implementation of the recommendations in the Country Structural Vulnerability and Resilience Assessment (CSVRA) and the Country Structural Vulnerability Mitigation Strategy (CSVMS) report of 2018. Evaluation and the monitoring of our implementation of the CSVRA and the CSVMS should be critical components of the mechanism for implementation,” he emphasised.
Mr Osafo-Maafo explained that, the assessment process culminated into the identification of seven vulnerabilities along the thematic areas outlined.
These he said included; socio-economic development, good governance, rule of law, democracy and human rights, the security sector, environment and climate change, gender and youth, post conflict peace-building and transitional justice and reconciliation.
The former Senior Minister noted that issues of youth unemployment constituted a major threat to the security of the country and everything possible must be done to resolve it.
“In your deliberations, be guided by the fact that youth unemployment continues to be a major source of concern for major governments on our continent, and Ghana is not an exception, as captured in the CSVRA/CSVMS report,” he said.
On his part the Minister of National Security, Mr Albert Kan Dapaah said the country’s CSVMS was a culmination of a long journey where Ghana accepted partnership of the African Union (AU) to submit its country strategy.
He explained that, this placed Ghana as the first country to avail itself for such assessment, stressing that “Ghana has made giant strides in putting in place resilient structures.”
Mr Kan Dapaah said it was important for African countries to deepen the structures of good governance in order to avert the needless coupd’états.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
